I am having several strange problems with audio. I can hear audio when logged in as root, but the sound is very low. When I log in as a user I get a message could not open /dev/dsp. To try to resolve this I did a usermod -G username audio and I receive a message usermod: unknown group audio

Like I said, If I log in as root I can hear audio. I have to turn the speakers up almost the whole way to get hear anything. When I try to play TuxRacer I get the following message

%%% tuxracer warning: Warning: Couldn't set 22050Hz 16-bit audio
Reason: No available audio device.
Segmentation Fault.
I can still play Tuxracer but I get no sound.

Here is what I have done to get to this point. I compiled my kernel with audio support and S3 SonicVibes card support built in (*) not as a module. I then emerged ALSA and I added snd-pcm-oss to /etc/modules.autoload. I did not add the snd-sonicvibes because it returns errors that the module could not be loaded. (probably because I compiled it right into the kernel.) Like I said, when logged in as root I hear audio, though very low.

Any ideas on what I did wrong, and how I can fix it? Thanks in advance..._________________Boricua Hasta La Muerte

Ok tried some more steps and I am still having problems with sound. I recompiled my Kernel with Support for Sound directly into the kernel but no specific driver. I unmerged and re-emerged alsa-driver and now snd-sonicvibes loads with no problems.

However I still do not have the group audio. Do I have to create this group? I thought from reading through other posts that the group was automatically created.

Oh yeah, I do not have any audio. I used alsamixer to max out the audio levels but still no sound. When I had the driver compiled right into the kernel I got sound, but it would not work with games like tuxracer. Any ideas on what I am doing wrong here? I can modprobe snd-sonicvibes and snd-pcm-oss with no unresolved dependencies. Me needs a bit of help here. I am stumped._________________Boricua Hasta La Muerte

Ok I get sound now. I used aumix to set the volume, saved it and now it stuck. Can't explain it. Just one of those wierd things. Audio is still not working with Tuxracer.I'll have to see how I fix it._________________Boricua Hasta La Muerte

to check whether there exists a group audio, just type the following at a shell prompt : "cat /etc/group | grep audio"

it should return smth like this -> audio:18:

(with my gentoo, the group audio was already created an had gid 1

if you got a group audio, that's nice :p (if not create one ? .. )
the next step is to check /dev/dsp ownership ( if you use devfs, it's a symbolic link to /dev/sound/dsp) so do an "ls -al /dev/dsp" or an "ls -al /dev/sound/dsp" if the former is a symbolic link. It should prompt smth like : crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 3 Jan 1 1970 /dev/sound/dsp

if that's the case, you're lucky and you'll just have to edit your /etc/group file and add some users to the audio group.

if the permissions are not like that, you should check your /etc/devfsd.conf file, and find the following 2 lines :
REGISTER sound/.* PERMISSIONS root.audio 660
REGISTER snd/.* PERMISSIONS root.audio 660
these lines specify the device's ownership & permissions. If these entries exist, you prob just have to create an audio group. If they don't ... hm be carefull of what you put into devfsd.conf

if you're not using devfs. Just check the permissions of /dev/dsp. and change them according to what you desire (you can make an audio group chown root:audio /dev/dsp & chmod 660 /dev/dsp)

as for the alsamixer, make sure you unmute the channels (with m-key on your keyboard). You'll see an M disappearing / reappearing when you push the m-key ... (& you'll need the master volume, pcm & sometimes the wave volume unmuted & turned up)

if this isn't clear enough, just tell me whether you're using devfs or not, so I can explain in further detail

I think I fixed the problem. I am still going to create the audio group however. Yes I use devfs. What I did was I removed the link /dev/dsp and I recreated it as root. Now sound works as a user. Thank you for the help

I may need to wipeout the system and reinstall but at least now I will not spend a few days getting audio to work

Why the reinstall you ask? Well it is not my main system and the gentoo install is fun and I have learned more in the month that I have used gentoo then in the two years that I used Redhat!

So far on this gentoo system I have learned to patch a kernel myself, compile from source, and I learned how much rpm's stink!!_________________Boricua Hasta La Muerte